


Dumb Guinea Pig

by AshsHorrorShow



Category: South Park
Genre: Anxiety, Future Fic, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Nostalgia, Pets, References to the Fractured But Whole, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 20:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15671127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshsHorrorShow/pseuds/AshsHorrorShow
Summary: Stripe kind of had the South Park spirit, hadn't he?





	Dumb Guinea Pig

“Do you remember Stripe?” Tweek suddenly asked, as he turned to look at his boyfriend, Craig. The two of them were at Craig’s house, watching TV. Well, for Tweek, it was more like _trying_ to watch TV. It was hard for him to sit in one place and concentrate for long periods of time. It was a problem that plagued him everywhere: school, work, at friend’s places, and any social event. His mind would always stray, his eyes would always look somewhere else, and he would always just be distracted by everything else _but_ the movie or whatever was in question in front of him.

And by the time his attention returned back into the movie, lesson, or whatever else, he’d already missed God only knows how many important plot points or instructions, and by that time, what was the point of trying to catch back up? 

Usually, if he could see his friends were engrossed though, he naturally didn’t want to interrupt or make them hate him more than they probably already did, so he would force himself to focus on the rest of whatever it was they were looking at, trying to expend all of the extra energy out of his body by any means necessary. Bouncing his leg, biting his lip, digging his nail into his skin, biting his nails, tugging at his hair, and other such methods were a reliable way to do this. These might cause minor annoyance to those around him, but at least if he could focus and remember key moments from whatever was left of the movie and lesson or whatever else, then he could relay those back to others and they could think he paid attention and like him still.

But, thankfully, with Craig, he didn’t feel the need to pretend like he did with the other kids. After all, Craig was apathetic about a lot of things and movies were one of them. The only kind of movies or shows that seemed to hold Craig’s interest were sci-fi ones, like Star Trek. Occasionally, a Red Racer, Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter would slip in there, but those were outliers. 

Otherwise though, Craig would look at most shows or movies like he did now. His arms crossed, a bored expression locked on his face, his eyes almost glassy. Then when the show ended, he had no doubt Craig would complain that it sucked. It made Tweek wonder why Craig even invited him to watch TV sometimes, if he disliked it so much. 

Maybe he thought Tweek enjoyed watching TV with him.

Either way, it made Tweek not feel all that guilty for interrupting the show with his question.

Thankfully, his prediction that Craig was not all that engrossed in the show was right. Craig, without even the slightest bit of annoyance showing in his face, immediately turned his attention to Tweek, his eyebrow raised. “You mean our adopted child? How could I forget?”

Tweek couldn’t help but feel his lip twitch upwards at Craig calling Stripe their adopted child. He had never thought of it that way, but he kind of had been, hadn’t he?

Nudging Craig lightly, he teased, “I’m surprised you knew which Stripe I was talking about, seeing as you had _four_.”

He still couldn’t believe that honestly. When he had bought the guinea pig from the pet store, and Craig had suggested the name ‘Stripe’ for it, he had immediately agreed. Sure, the name was generic, but it was simple and cute. It was probably better than any name he would’ve come up with, at least.

Well, his happiness towards the name quickly died when Craig’s sister, Tricia, informed him that this was the _fourth_ guinea pig Craig had donned that name on. How uncreative was that? 

However, Craig’s response to that criticism was the same as it had been all those years ago. Sounding borderline defensive, he said, “Hey! It’s a good name and it fits. All of my guinea pigs had a stripe on them. So, what was the point of coming up with a whole new name for them? It wasn’t like any of the Stripes were going to complain or anything or even care.”

“Whatever,” Tweek said, knowing that he wasn’t going to convince Craig otherwise or get anywhere in that argument. Instead, he decided to change the topic slightly, “Remember when we had an actual custody battle over him?”

Craig rolled his eyes. “How could I forget? Only _we_ could bring in a lover’s tiff while playing superheroes.”

“To be fair, it was the game itself that caused our ‘break-up’, in the first place,” Tweek pointed out. 

“I can’t believe we let those movie and TV show ideas break us up,” Craig said with a scowl, “They were never going to happen to begin with.”

Tweek allowed himself to laugh. Feeling a bit nervous that perhaps he laughed a bit too loudly at that, or Craig hadn’t meant for the comment to be slightly light-hearted, he quickly sobered up and anxiously began clawing at the skin of his arm as he explained, “Well, first of all, we were both _ten_ at the time, and second of all, we probably thought it _was_ possible. After all, we live in South Park. Weird things are always happening here. Honestly, if tomorrow I heard a group of fourth graders managed to successfully make a superhero franchise, I probably wouldn’t be as shocked as I should be.”

“I disagree,” Craig said immediately. Tweek opened his mouth to protest, but Craig quickly interjected, “Not with the whole little kids making a successful movie franchise thing, but with the you not being shocked and anxious thing. That is an unrealistic image.”

Tweek crossed his arms and pouted. Moving his gaze away from Craig, he muttered under his breath that he supposed if those kids’ superhero ideas were anything like theirs, he would worry a bit of Marvel or DC trying to sue those kids. Craig really hadn’t been meant to hear that comment, but of course, he somehow managed to catch it, scoffing and saying with an eye roll, “My point exactly.”

Tweek elbowed him once more, muttering a quick, “Fuck off, dude…” that had absolutely no bite to it. 

Thinking back to their spat, Tweek commented, “Thank god Buttlord was there. Without them, who knows if we would’ve been mature enough to fix it.” 

That was not exactly true. He was actually pretty sure they could of. That hadn’t been the first or last fight he and Craig ever had. It was really the only one where they “broke things off,” but still. The conflict used to scare him. It still kind of did. However, as he had gotten older, he’d learned that it was somewhat natural. Every couple had their disagreements every now and then, and with how opposite he and Craig were in personality, it was bound to happen. 

But no matter what, no matter how heated their argument got, he and Craig always somehow managed to find a way to make up and compromise, and for that Tweek was grateful. Craig meant more to him than anyone else ever had, and the idea of losing him made Tweek’s heart ache. But Craig cared about him too, and Tweek was sure that was why their relationship always ended up working out, no matter what bump came their way.

So he had no doubt eventually they would learn to have get over their fight and make up, even back then. However, it felt wrong not to give Buttlord at least a little bit of credit for expediting that, by giving Craig and him couple’s therapy. Without them, who knows how long Tweek would’ve just sat in work, feeling sad over Craig and vagueing about him on Coonstagram. That was an ugly thought. 

Craig nodded his agreement, “I miss that kid. They kind of just disappeared one day. Did any of us even bother to learn their real name?”

“No. Well, supposedly Cartman, Kenny, and Butters know. However, Butters and Kenny said they had long since forgotten it and Cartman-” Tweek began. 

“Is full of shit…” Craig finished. Tweek nodded.

It really was a shame because Buttlord had actually been the one positive of the town too. They had done a lot to help. But just as soon as they appeared, they disappeared, probably having moved away. Tweek sometimes tried to check up on them on social media, but Buttlord had never updated his status since then. He hoped the kid was doing alright, wherever they were.

Craig sighed, “Even after all the drama involving Cartman and Mitch Conner and all of that other stuff, that stupid guinea pig kept causing trouble.” 

Tweek nodded, “That guinea pig should’ve been named Houdini, given how many times he managed to escape.”

Tweek and Craig actually used to split up having Stripe over at their houses. However, one day, Stripe managed to pull one of his escape stunts out of his cage, and Tweek had nearly had a panic attack trying to find him. There was simply too many dangers for a guinea pig in a coffee shop, especially one as adventurous as Stripe. Machinery that he could fall into, air vents that could allow him to escape, and even if he didn’t get himself into trouble, his hair and droppings could’ve done God knows what to the coffee.

After he had actually called Craig in mid-panic attack to help him find Stripe, they had agreed to just let Craig keep him. But even though Craig was more used to escaping guinea pigs, that didn’t mean Stripe didn’t pull some real heists.

“Remember when Stripe managed to escape all the way into Professor Chaos’ lair and we had to sort out of all of Butters fucking minions to find him?” Craig groused. 

Tweek certainly did. That had been a nightmare and a half. To this day, Tweek didn’t know how Butters managed to not only buy all those hamsters behind his parents’ back, but how he managed to feed them as well. 

“Wouldn’t of been as bad if Butters hadn’t fucking locked us in that warehouse,” Tweek said. It was one of Professor Chaos’s “traps,” which was essentially shutting and locking the storage garage they were in.

“Wonder Tweek and Super Craig certainly had a time in for them then. We had to fucking call Captain Diabetes to help free us,” Craig said.

“We practically kept Stripe on permanent lockdown for a week after that,” Tweek said, remembering the way they had stacked books on top of Stripe’s cage to ensure that he didn’t escape.  
Craig looked at him accusingly saying, “Would’ve kept him on permanent lockdown if someone didn’t show mercy.”

“It felt mean to do!” Tweek protested immediately, remembering his begging of Craig to remove the books. He also knew what Craig was so mad about. Giving a lopsided grin, he said, “Come on, that was one of the best dates ever.”

“We got kicked out of a restaurant because Stripe somehow managed to stow away in our jackets and get on someone’s food,” Craig complained, though Tweek could see he was holding back a laugh at the memory. 

“As if you wouldn’t of gotten us kicked out anyway,” Tweek shot back, “You were about one second away from flipping that waiter off.”

“He was a rude waiter, what can I say?” Craig said, with a shrug. 

“Still bitter about it, I see,” Tweek said, shaking his head.

As the two of them told story after story about that stupid guinea pig, Tweek felt a wave nostalgia growing more and more inside of him. He was almost an adult now. He and Craig were both seniors in high school now, and very soon, they would be attending a college far, far away from South Park. And in a way, he was happy about this.

South Park was a terrible place. It was mountain town in the middle of nowhere that was populated by reactionary people, bigots, and quite frankly, crazy people. Something insane and over the top was always happening there. Most of the adults, were quite frankly, morally bankrupt, a fact Tweek seemed to only learn as of recently. Even his parents, for allowing him to become like this and feeding into it more with their coffee. 

It wasn’t always easy in South Park. It would probably be the best thing for his anxiety to move as far away as possible, actually settle into something normal. However, as easy as it was to demonize South Park, it also carried its fond memories. 

Somehow, despite all of his problems, he had actually managed to garner quite a large group of friends, and he still hung around a lot of them to this very day. He hoped that distance wouldn’t kill every single one of them. That somehow, they could manage to keep a casual camaraderie through it all. 

South Park was where he met Craig, the person he cared about the most.

And while South Park introduced crazier things than any kid should probably have to suffer through, he and all of his friends managed to make adventures out of it all. They had managed to make some good out of all of the bad. 

And maybe, Stripe, feeling that South Park air, had wanted to be apart of some of those adventures. Tweek couldn’t help but smile at the thought. 

Turning to Craig, he asked, “Hey, when we go to college and get our own apartment… do you want to get another guinea pig?”

**Author's Note:**

> To be perfectly honest, I am not a huge fan of this fic. It didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to. However, it felt good to actually try writing for a new fandom and I wanted to write something in honor of the SP games especially, since I basically played Stick of Truth and The Fractured But Whole back to back recently and had loads of fun. 
> 
> Hopefully, some of you managed to find something to enjoy out of this however! 
> 
> As always, critique is wanted and if you see a mistake, feel free to point it out!
> 
> Have a great day!


End file.
